The Relationship between the Human Resource Practices of the Civil Service and Turnover Intentions among the Middle Range Civil Servants in Malawi

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(1)The Relationship between the Human Resource Practices of the Civil Service and Turnover Intentions among the Middle Range Civil Servants in Malawi. by Esther Winsome Austen Ng’ong’ola. A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of. MASTER OF EDUCATION. Major: International Workforce Education and Development. Advisor: Tony Cheng-Ping Shih, Ph.D.. National Taiwan Normal University Taipei, Taiwan June, 2009.

(2) ACKNOWDGEMENT This paper marks the zenith of the knowledge attained in the Republic of China, Taiwan at a higher level. This would not have been possible without the hand of the Heavenly Father who opened the door for a scholarship opportunity through Taiwan International Co-operation Development Fund (ICDF). I give praise, honour and thanks to the Almighty for His Grace and Mercies ushered unto me to be able to attain this scholarship. Many thanks also go to TaiwanICDF for sponsoring me for the whole two years of my study. This would not have been possible without their commitment-may God bless the good work ICDF is doing to many like me.. I should also be most grateful to my thesis advisor Dr Tony Cheng-Ping Shih for the support and advice rendered during the thesis development. This hand of gratitude is also extended to members of my thesis committee-Dr Pai Po Lee and Dr Wei-Wen Chang for their kind, wonderful and meaningful contribution to this paper. The advice and guidance given shall always be valued. I also wish to thank Dr Shie-Hwa Lin for his advice too. Many thanks go to my classmates and friends: Mr Abdoulie Jallow (from the Gambia), Miss Agnela Makin (from Belize) and Austen (from Taiwan) for their kind help and assistance rendered in different ways during my thesis writing.. Many thanks go to all who responded to my questionnaire for their willingness to share their opinions through the study. Special thanks also go to all my friends who I made while in Taiwan. Without them life would have been terrible and miserable. I do not wish to forget my church family in Taiwan- New Life SDA Church for the moral and spiritual support offered in many ways. I cannot forget my family members-mum, dad, sisters and I.

(3) their families, my aunties and uncles for their moral, physical and spiritual support rendered during my stay in Taiwan. I always thank God for the wonderful family God gave me. Your support and love is so amazing. Finally, I wish to thank my fiancé-Mpha for the patience exercised and endurance shown during my absence for 2 years. The moral and spiritual support shown are highly appreciated and not taken for granted. I will always live to cherish the love shown and the patience displayed-May God bless you.. May God bless everyone who contributed to this paper in one way or the other. May God’s name be exalted and glorified.. . II.

(4) ABSTRACT The Government of Malawi is one of the biggest employers for the educated Malawians employing more than sixty percent of the total workforce. It is also the biggest employer for young people who just graduate from the university, as employees either without any experience at all or with very limited experience. Companies and other nongovernmental institutions do not really employee such inexperienced workforce in masses; as a result these young graduates have very limited choice of employer. In view of this, these inexperienced graduates depend on the government for employment despite the fact that it does not pay “well” as compared to other non-government employers. Additionally, the civil service has been deemed by several Breton-Wood Institutions and others as having poor or unattractive working conditions just like other governments in the least developed countries. Due to these problems, there have been mass exoduses from the civil service exemplified by the medical personnel in the health sector as well as in education. This is very evident among the middle range or entry levels who also happen to be these new graduates from the University yet they are the hub of the professional/technical and administrative categories. This means that the more turnover the civil service has today, the greater the risk of having a poor civil service in the near future. This has not gone well with the government as an employer because recruitment, selection and hiring are very costly and time consuming. In trying to curb the many problems faced by the civil service, the Breton-Woods Institutions initiated what have been called the Civil Service Reform Programmes for more than 10 years (since 1994/5). One of the targets in the Civil Service Reform Programmes was (and still is) to improve the working conditions of the civil servants in order to reduce turnover and enhance retention. This study examined the relationship between some Human Resource practices (salary, job enrichment/autonomy and job stability strategies) as the precursor variables and turnover intentions as an outcome variable. It also explains the relationship between of job satisfaction and employee commitment with both turnover and the HR practices.. Backward regression method was used to find the relationships. It still remains obvious that intentions to exit the civil service remain high but employees can hardly quit mainly due to other external labour market forces and also the job security they enjoy in the III.

(5) service. Satisfaction and commitment remain shaky- levels are relatively low though not too low. Key words: Civil service reforms, salary, turnover, job satisfaction, employee commitment, job enrichment/autonomy, job stability (security).. IV.

(6) TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWDGEMENT........................................................................................................... I ABSTRACT.........................................................................................................................III TABLE OF CONTENTS .......................................................................................................V LIST OF TABLES.............................................................................................................. VII LIST OF FIGURES ...........................................................................................................VIII CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION.............................................................................................1 Chapter Overview ..............................................................................................................1 Background to the Study ....................................................................................................1 Statement of the Problem ...................................................................................................3 Purpose of the Study ..........................................................................................................3 Research Questions ............................................................................................................3 Hypotheses the Study.........................................................................................................4 Significance of the Study ...................................................................................................7 Definitions of Terms ..........................................................................................................8 Delimitations and Limitations ............................................................................................9 CHAPTER II. LITERATURE REVIEW...............................................................................11 Chapter Overview ............................................................................................................11 Civil Service Reforms in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) ........................................................11 Civil Service Reforms in Malawi .....................................................................................17 Turnover Intentions..........................................................................................................20 Job Enrichment ................................................................................................................27 Job Satisfaction ................................................................................................................31 Employee Commitment....................................................................................................33 Job Stability and Security.................................................................................................36 CHAPTER III. METHODOLOGY.......................................................................................39 Chapter Overview ............................................................................................................39 Research Procedure..........................................................................................................39 Research Framework........................................................................................................40 Research Methods............................................................................................................42 Validity and Reliability ....................................................................................................48 V.

(7) Research Processes ..........................................................................................................49 CHAPTER IV. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ..................................................................51 Chapter Overview ............................................................................................................51 Empirical Results .............................................................................................................52 Empirical Results Discussions........................................................................................104 CHAPTER V. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS .......................................117 Chapter Overview ..........................................................................................................117 Conclusions Based on the Results ..................................................................................117 Recommendations..........................................................................................................122 Recommendations for Future Research ..........................................................................123 REFERENCES...................................................................................................................125 APPENDICES....................................................................................................................129 Appendix A: Questionnaire Covering Letter ..................................................................129 Appendix B: Employee Research Questionnaire ............................................................130. VI.

(8) LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1.Data Variables by Entries and Values.....................................................................43 Table 4.1. Descriptive Results .............................................................................................52 Table 4. 2. Frequency Results ..............................................................................................55 Table 4.3. Multiple Regression Analysis of Job Satisfaction and Employee Commitment and Turnover Intentions ..........................................................................................57 Table 4.4. Multiple Regression Analysis of Job Satisfaction and Employee Commitment and Turnover Intentions ......................................................................61 Table 4.5. Multiple Regression Analysis of Job Satisfaction and Employee Commitment and Turnover Intentions ...........................................................................................65 Table 4.6. Multiple Regression Analysis of Salary, Job Enrichment and Job Stability and Job Satisfaction ........................................................................................................68 Table 4.7. Multiple Regression Analysis of Salary, Job Enrichment and Job Stability and Job Satisfaction .................................................................................................73 Table 4.8. Multiple Regression Analysis of Salary, Job Enrichment and Job Stability and Employee Commitment............................................................................................78 Table 4.9. Multiple Regression Analysis of Salary, Job enrichment and job Stability and Employee Commitment............................................................................................83 Table 4.10. Multiple Regression Analysis of Salary, job Enrichment and job Stability and Turnover Intentions (Y1) ...................................................................................88 Table 4.11. Multiple Regression Analysis of Salary, Job Enrichment and Job Stability and Turnover Intentions ...........................................................................................94 Table 4.12. Multiple Regression Analysis of Salary, Job Enrichment and Job Stability and Turnover Intentions ...........................................................................................99. VII.

(9) LIST OF FIGURES. . Figure 3. 1. Research Framework ........................................................................................41 Figure 3. 2. Research Process...................................................................................................50. VIII.

(10) CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION Chapter Overview This chapter gives a background of the study-that is the motivation that drove the researcher to engage in the study. Thus it explains the situations on the ground in SubSaharan Africa as well as in Malawi that triggered the researcher to conduct this study. It outlines the issues of brain-drain due to poor policies in management and incentives offered to human resources in the civil service. It further outlines the time period when these problems started and what different governments tried to do in order to mitigate on the problems. It also digs out the main problems faced by governments in trying to solve the problems. These help the reader understand the in-depth of the problem and relate them well with the researcher’s choice of the questions and hypotheses which are later answered.. Background to the Study Human Resource practices are an integral part of any organisation, be it in public, private or non-profit making organisation. Studies suggest that HR practices affect organizational outcomes by shaping employee behaviours and attitudes. For instance (LunaArocas & Camps 2008) argue that “high performance work practices (HPWP) increase organisational effectiveness by creating conditions where employees become highly involved in the organization and work hard to accomplish its goals, in other words, by increasing their employees’ commitment to the organisation and job satisfaction.” In turn this reduces turnover intentions as well as turn over since the two are negatively related. Turnover on the other hand reduces the organisation’s effectiveness since most of the work is left undone due to lack of personnel to do the work. Alternatively hiring and rehiring of new skilled workers is costly and also takes a long time. This also affects the operations and the effectiveness of the organisation. In recent years, there have been inexplicable turnovers in most of the Civil Services in the Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). This trend started in around 1960s; however it became even more serious towards the end of the 20th Century and was projected to continue at the dawn of the 21st century (Kiragu, 1998). Malawi was no exception to this problem. In the 1.

(11) Malawian context it was highly felt in the health sector where most of the trained doctors and nurses left the country to industrialized countries in search for greener pasture. For instance in 1998, medical doctor vacancy rates in the public sector were reported at 43% in Ghana and 36% in Malawi. In 1998, public sector nurse vacancy rate was reported at 48% in Lesotho this is according to (Liese, Blanchet & Dussault, 2003). The health sector in all the Sub-Saharan Africa is just a representation of the many sectors that have been hit hard by this high turnover of Civil Servants. Following this high turnover and other factors such as unsustainable high wage bills and ineffective large Civil Service, many African governments embarked on what have been termed as Public Service Reform Programmes (Lienert, 1998). Malawi also joined the bandwagon in reforming its Public Sector which also includes the Civil Service. The Government of Malawi (GoM) implemented the latest Public Service Reform Programmes between 1995 and 2005. This however, was one of the several reforms that were ever implemented since the 1960s. The Government of Malawi therefore followed a different path in implementing the new reforms by putting up what it called the Action Plan for the reform programs. Following this, several strategies/paths were set up and implemented in order to achieve these goals and the others that fell under the reform programmes. Such strategies included retrenchment. More importantly the objectives were set up in this manner in order to curb the massive brain drain that faces the government for its knowledge workers. Brain drain is “the emigration or flight of skilled human capital from one country to the other in search of better returns to one’s knowledge, skills, qualifications, and competencies” (Liese, Blanchet & Dussault, 2003). Simply put, the emigration of an individual is a brain drain because they are an investment loss to her country by not using the education gained (up to university level) to work there. It is not clear however if the reform programs really achieved their intended above objectives. That is, if the reforms have finally managed to achieve the ultimate goal of reducing turnover intentions which result in total or absolute turnover. This can only be determined if there is reduced turnover intentions among the Civil Servants and thus the genesis of this paper. 2.

(12) Statement of the Problem Brain drain continues to be a big threat to the operations of the Civil Service in Malawi. Unless the government redirects its strategizes on improving working conditions, brain drain among the knowledge (professional) employees continues to hamper its development agenda. It is important therefore to study how the current Human Resources practices are impacting turnover intentions among these knowledge workers.. Purpose of the Study The purpose of this study is to examine whether there is any relationship between job satisfaction and employee commitment, and turnover intentions; and also between selected Human Resource practices (salary, job enrichment/autonomy and job stability/security) job satisfaction and employee commitment. Finally, examine the relationship between the aforementioned HR practices and selected and turnover intentions among middle level civil servants in Malawi. In essence, the study looks at employee attitudes on various aspects that in turn have been found to affect turnover in other studies.. Research Questions There are three main questions in this study and they are designed to examine the relationship between independent and the dependent variables. The questions are as follows: 1. Is there any relationship between employee commitment & job satisfaction, and turnover intentions? 2. Is there any relationship between HR practices (salary, job enrichment/autonomy, job stability/ security) and employee commitment and job satisfaction? 3. Is there any relationship between HR practices (salary, job enrichment/autonomy, job stability/ security) and turnover intentions? Due to the nature of the model of the study, there are several independent and dependent variables. The model is in stages as such, job satisfaction and employee commitment at some points are independent then dependent variables. 3.

(13) Model 1: the independent variables are job satisfaction and employee commitment while the dependent variable is turnover intentions. In this model, job satisfaction is treated as a variable on its own and so is employee commitment. Model 2: the independent variables in this model are the selected HR practice variables (salary, job enrichment and job stability). This means that each independent variable is treated separately and the results are also analysed as such. The dependent variables are job satisfaction and then employee commitment. It should be noted that each of the dependent variables is treated separately in order to analyse the results independently. Model 3: the independent variables are the selected HR practice variables (salary, job enrichment and job stability). The dependent variable is turnover intentions. Just as in model 2, all the independent variables are treated independently in terms of analysis.. Hypotheses the Study The hypotheses are organised based on the model. Since the model is in 3 stages, the hypotheses are arranged as such and there are sub-hypotheses in each main hypothesis. In addition, turnover intentions have 3 measurable items and hence all the items are measured separately against each of these 3 items. Model 1 1. Is there any relationship between Job satisfaction & employee commitment and turnover intentions? Hypothesis 1: x = Job satisfaction and. y = turnover intentions.. H0: There is no relationship between job satisfaction and job turnover intentions. H0: µ= 0 Ha: There is a relationship between salary and turnover intentions. Ha: µ ≠ 0. 4.

(14) Hypothesis 2: x =Employee Commitment and H0:. y = turnover intentions.. There is no relationship between employee commitment and job turnover. intentions. H0: µ= 0 Ha: There is a relationship between salary and turnover intentions.. Ha: µ ≠ 0. Model 2 1. Is there any relationship between HR practices (salary, job enrichment/autonomy, job stability/ security) and employee commitment and job satisfaction? Hypothesis 3a: x =salary strategies. and. y = job satisfaction. H0: There is no relationship between salary strategies and job satisfaction. H0: µ= 0 Ha: There is a relationship between salary strategies and job satisfaction. Ha: µ ≠ 0. Hypothesis 3b: x =salary strategies. and. y = employee commitment. H0: There is no relationship between salary strategies and Employee Commitment. H0: µ= 0 Ha: There is a relationship between salary strategies and employee commitment. Ha: µ ≠ 0 Hypothesis 4a: x = job enrichment (autonomy). and. y = Job satisfaction. H0: There is no relationship between job enrichment (autonomy) and job satisfaction. H0: µ= 0 Ha: There is a relationship between job enrichment (autonomy) and job satisfaction.. Ha: µ ≠ 0. 5.

(15) Hypothesis 4b: x = job enrichment (autonomy) and. y = employee Commitment. H0: There is no relationship between job enrichment (autonomy) and employee commitment H0: µ= 0 Ha: There is a relationship between Job enrichment (autonomy) and employee commitment. Ha: µ ≠ 0 Hypothesis 5a: x = job stability. and. y = job satisfaction. H0: There is no relationship between job stability and job satisfaction. H0: µ= 0 Ha: There is a relationship between job stability and job satisfaction. Ha: µ ≠ 0 Hypothesis 5b: x = job stability (security) and. y =employee commitment. H0: There is no relationship between job stability. (security). and. employee. Commitment. H0: µ= 0 Ha: There is a relationship between Job stability (security) and Employee Commitment. Ha: µ ≠ 0 Model 3 3. Is there any relationship between HR practices (salary, job enrichment/autonomy, job stability/ security) and turnover intentions? Hypothesis 6: x = salary strategies and. y = turnover intentions.. H0: There is no relationship between salary strategies and job turnover intentions. H0: µ= 0 Ha: There is a relationship between salary strategies and turnover intentions. Ha: µ ≠ 0. 6.

(16) Hypothesis 7: x = job enrichment (autonomy) H0:. and. y = turnover intentions.. There is no relationship between job enrichment (autonomy) and turnover. intentions. H0: µ= 0 Ha: There is a relationship between job enrichment (autonomy) and turnover intentions. Ha: µ ≠ 0 Hypothesis 8: x = job stability (security). and. y = turnover intentions.. H0: There is a relationship between job stability (security) and turnover intentions. H0: µ = 0 Ha: There is no relationship between job stability (security) and turnover intentions. Ha: µ ≠ 0. Significance of the Study The findings of the study will add to the Government of Malawi research database on: •. How to improve Civil Service working conditions in order to retain the young knowledge workers who leave the government and work in other sectors, or even abroad in search for greener pasture due to frustrating working conditions. In this context, salary benefits, job design and stable jobs.. •. There will be new information that never came to light during the previous research due to the fact that most of these young workers were not consulted fully in the programme implementation as (Liese, Blanchet & Dussault, 2003) suggest. Thus the reforms did not take care of other incentives that would really motivate the civil servants. Thus the hidden needs of the civil servants were not dug into to find out other motivating incentives other than the ones that are already common and highly perceived.. •. It will further predict whether Middle Range Civil servants are more likely to turn over their jobs in the next few (1-5) years.. 7.

(17) •. Finally, the results will act as a starting point for future researches since it will show what attitudes employees have and how they are impacting their satisfaction, commitment and also their future employment.. Definitions of Terms Civil Servants: refers to employees on the government pay roll whether or not they occupy established, non-established and industrial class positions. However, this definition excludes employees in parastatals and local government whose salaries may be funded by the central government through subsidies and grants. This definition has also been used in the (Civil Service Pay and Employment Study of the World Bank, 1994). Salary: pay given to employees which is meant to compensate for the services rendered. This includes all employees on exempt positions and therefore do not receive any overtime pay. Exempt pay is calculated at an annual or monthly rate rather than hourly (Republic of Malawi: Public Administration Country Profile). Job Enrichment (autonomy): can be defined as giving workers more tasks to perform and more control over how to perform the tasks (Moorhead & Griffin, 2004). Job autonomy: this means, giving more freedom to the employee to execute most of the important decisions on how the job has to be done. The meaning of enrichment in this paper is fluid-encompasses the meaning of autonomy as well. Most of the authors (Moorhead & Griffin, 2004; Miner, 2005; Allen & Meyer, 2003) have used the two words interchangeably and so is in this paper. Job stability: Job stability looks at the employee’s mobility in terms of job or employer. In other words this is the tenure of continuous service rendered (both) to the job and/or the employer (Farber, 1998). In this paper, the focus is on leaving the employer. Thus job stability for the purposes of this study is the longevity of service to the employer. Job security: on the other hand this refers to the probability that an individual will keep his or her job; a job with a high level of job security is such that a person with the job 8.

(18) would have a small chance of becoming unemployed involuntarily (Ongori, 2007). Since the two items are studied side by side or alternatively, this paper alternates their use and definition (Meyer & Allen, 2003). Job satisfaction: is the “affective or emotional response to one’s job associated with the factors identified by Herzberg as motivators, for example, achievement, recognition, characteristics of the work itself, responsibility and advancement” (Kreitner & Kinicki, 1998, p.158). Employee Commitment: is the degree to which an employee identifies with a particular organization and its goals and wishes to maintain membership in the organization (Meyer & Allen, 1991). Employee Turnover Intentions: the voluntary decision intending to quit the job or/and the employer by the employee (Mitchell, Holtom, Lee, Sablynski & Erez, 2005).. Delimitations and Limitations Delimitations There are several delimitations to this study. The first delimitation is that the paper was an e-research paper. This means that the questionnaire was administered online. Participants had to respond online. This was very convenient to the participants as they did not have to consult any gatekeepers on whether to participate in the survey or not. This enhanced the true opinions and perceptions of the participants on the issues under study. Secondly, the method was time and cost effective in several ways. The researcher did not have to wait for permission from the authorities in order to administer the questionnaire. Getting permission in government is very hard due to the bureaucracies (official procedures to be followed). It takes a long period of time for people to get permission to do anything in government and this would have delayed the whole process of data collection and the rest of the processes. It was quicker and easy for both the researcher and the respondents to send 9.

(19) and fill the online questionnaire respectively. These reasons brought about good representation of the evaluation of the Civil Service working conditions since the respondents were Civil Servants who really felt the need to have conditions and other incentives improved. This method was also highly private and confidential which also maximised participation and confidence of the respondents since there was no face contact with the researcher. This was very important in maintaining confidence in the respondents and reducing fear of being betrayed. This was also a safer way for the researcher since the government does not allow anybody working for the government to conduct any kind of surveys of his nature if the person is not contracted by the government to do so.. Limitations There were other limitations as well to this study. Since it was a snow-ball webbased questionnaire, some participants may have chosen not to participate as the questionnaire may have landed in the bulk folder. Alternatively, they may simply have ignored it for no apparent reason. The survey was also limited to those who have access to internet only and this may have excluded those who hardly access the internet especially those working in rural areas. Another limitation concerns the return rate: it was not possible to know the return rate because all questionnaires were being administered online and through snowball. It was not possible to know the total number of sent questionnaires and the respondents to come up with a concrete return rate. The other problem was the use of self-report questionnaire on all measures. This means that respondents had to rate their own attitudes by themselves. The other limitation is that no random sampling was used. Snowball sampling was used and this may have created a problem of biasness since respondents may only be those who are really interested in the topic or people (interested parties only). Alternatively, respondents may have sent to their friends only who also had the same interests. The other limitation concerns the measurements of some latent (hidden) factors with a few observable variables. 10.

(20) CHAPTER II. LITERATURE REVIEW Chapter Overview This chapter covers the background to the reforms in Sub-Saharan Africa in general and then Malawi in particular. Theories on motivation are also discussed: the (MotivatorHygiene) or two-factor theory being the most prominent. Human Resource Development theories on job enrichment and job autonomy strategies are discussed as well since there are variables that are related to the two. Other concepts under discussion include what have been termed as High Performance Work Practices. In relation to these are employee job satisfaction issues, job stability (security), salary strategies issues and employee commitment issues. Thus the chapter looks at the works that other people have done before.. Civil Service Reforms in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) Civil Service reforms in Sub-Saharan Africa started as early as 1970s when governments of the developing countries were under pressure to reform their economies. During this time governments in SSA took the leading role in carrying out economic stabilization reforms. These reforms took many forms but most of the governments had similar approaches to the reforms as they were mostly pushed by the Breton Wood Institutions (the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund). There were factors that led to the reforms and most of them had similar reasons despite that the governments were affected in different ways. Among the common factors that led to the reforms include, “chronic budget deficits, a fall in the value of goods and services, persistent balance of payments deficits, and increasing recourse to external borrowing as a source of revenue for the government” (Leniger-Gumaz, 1993, p.12). Other factors also included big unproductive and unsatisfied civil services which drew a lot of money from the government coffers. This was not all as Lienert explains: BEFORE 1985, many countries in sub-Saharan Africa had seen their nominal wage bills expand. This was due, in large part, to a rapid increase in civil service employment—in some countries, the number of civil servants rose by as much as 10 percent a year. This expansion reflected the high degree of government intervention in the economy as well as the need to educate and provide health care to burgeoning populations. Additionally, the state often guaranteed civil service 11.

(21) jobs for graduates of institutions of higher education. Civil service employment was also a reward for political patronage (Lienert, 1998, p.8). The problems above brought with them many other problems. For instance, the rapid increase in employment was made possible with the reduction in salaries especially for those at the top of the pay scale. There was also a considerable drop in Management-level salaries during this period. For instance in “Zambia in 1971 an assistant director' s salary was 17 times the salary of the lowest-paid employee; by 1986, it was only 4 times as much. This is just one good example among the many other similar examples” (Lienert, 1998, p.9). Overstaffing and low salaries also had other adverse results including poor staff morale and a decline in work effort; difficulties in recruiting and retaining technical and professional staff; non-transparent forms of remuneration, especially nonwage benefits in cash or in kind; and strong incentives to accept bribes. Additionally, the nominal wage bill increasingly contributed to growing fiscal deficits in many African countries. Its increase relative to nonwage expenditures also had negative results in that most of the civil servants could not perform their duties properly since there were no enough resources for them. All these compounded the already existing problems of worker efficiency and morale (motivation) according to (Lienert & Modi, 1997). Every problem demands a solution at any point in time and so did the SSA problems. There arose a need to address all the problems especially cutting down government expenditures and budget deficits as well as improving the productivity of the civil service. This then demanded a strategy on how to reform the whole civil service. There were a number of strategies that were adopted in most of the SSA countries in order to reform the civil service. The strategies were cross-cutting in all the regions in SSA because the reforms were mostly donor-driven as such they donors prescribed measures to be implemented in order to effect the reforms. It should however be noted that civil service reforms in SSA have taken place in at least two distinct periods of time: soon after the independence and then later in the 1990s. To this end (Therkildsen, 2001, p.18) explains that “the earlier reforms aimed at shaping a public administration that could spearhead national development, albeit in the mould of the colonial age.” The earlier reforms may also be referred to as postindependence reforms. These are quite different with the current reforms that have been going on since around 1990s. On the other hand, “the current reform efforts aim to reduce 12.

(22) the costs and refocus the activities of the public sector, to change the way it works, and to promote the role of the market and non-governmental actors both in service provision and in the economy at large”, (Therkildsen, 2001, p.19). It should be noted that although the aims of the post-independence era and the current reforms seem to have different aims, there is an overarching aim of reducing government costs and expenditures against their revenues. Due to this factor both reforms had similar starting points in their approach as Lienert, puts it: In implementing reforms, governments sought to (1) downsize the civil service to make it more affordable and to bring it into line with a new, scaled-down role for government in economic activities; (2) provide civil servants with appropriate incentives, skills, and motivation; and (3) enhance management and accountability (Lienert, 1998, p.9).. Following the above aims/agendas, governments took different steps in each step although in most governments what was very clear was the downsizing as opposed to providing appropriate incentives for the civil servants and enhancing management. In essence there was more activity in downsizing than in the other two however most governments also managed to do something on enhancing management and accountability in the civil service. There were steps in downsizing the civil service with more caution to the political environment of that particular country. Different countries realized that there are a lot of different potential risks in carrying out downsizing exercises. Political consideration occupied much space than economic and social precautions in every country. Below is an outline of the most common measures that were used in the increased order of their perceived political risk and protecting the integrity of the profession according to (Kiggundu): 1. Removal of ‘ghost’ or non-existent names and workers from the government pay roll. 2. Elimination of officially sanctioned posts that are not currently filled. 3. Retrenchment of temporary or seasonal workers. 4. Enforcement of retirement age. 5. Freezing of recruitment. 6. Elimination of guaranteed entry to the civil service from the educational or training system. 7. Suspension of automatic advancement. 8. ‘Voluntary’ incentive-induced retirement of surplus workers. 9. Containment of wages (restraints or freezes). 10. Dismissal of serving civil servants (Kiggundu, 1997, p.65).. 13.

(23) Governments in the SSA region perceived that the reforms had come with both danger and opportunity. The danger involved political risks such as riots and coups; administrative resistance like strikes or even economic sabotage like smuggling especially in countries with political instability. This consideration was of great importance in places where demobilisation of military personnel would be involved since this is the most serious category of civil servants as opposed to the civilian civil servants. Further considerations on the military demobilisation also had to be made seriously in “countries revolving from war (e.g. Somalia), to absence of war (e.g. Mozambique), peacemaking (e.g. South Africa) and democratic development (e.g. Namibia)” (Kiggundu, 1997, p.7). Since the main and major step was to reduce the workforce, the steps above were implemented in that order. Ghost workers are those names and workers who appear on the government payroll when in actual fact there are no people bearing those names. Ghost workers were mostly people who either died or resigned from the civil service but were never erased on the payroll because some people responsible for that were benefiting from their salaries. This is just one part of the corrupt practices that rocked most of the civil services in the SSA (Lienert, 1998). In some countries officially sanctioned posts were not filled. During this period, such posts had to be eliminated forthwith. This acted as a softer way of reducing civil service employment since no-one would be recruited anymore. Retrenchment of temporary or seasonal workers played a big role. These workers are mostly employed at certain season of the fiscal or agricultural calendar to perform certain duties. Mostly they would not really be removed from their duties when the work is done, as a result they would find their way on the civil service payroll. Retrenching these workers meant reducing the number of employees considerably. The other important task was to enforce the retirement age. In most governments it was noted that when people reach retirement age they would not retire. They would keep on working as long as their health permitted. This also contributed to the burgeoning of the civil service. The other problem with this group of people is that most of them were in top positions and hence at the apex of the pay scale which means they were consuming even more money from the government. Retiring these people reduced the government budget in the long run although at first it proved to be expensive since they had to be given their severance packages as well as the goldenhandshake in some countries. Another method was to freeze recruitment. This means that 14.

(24) governments stopped recruiting any more civil servants. There were other governments that offered automatic jobs to new graduates from the university and other higher institutions of training. In some countries like Central Africa Republic one person would be recruited for every three who have left which still proved to be expensive such that the policy had to be revisited. For every three services that would be rendered to the public, there had to be one Franc to be paid for it (Kiggundu, 1997). There is however some variations in how the Civil Service Restructuring (CSR) was carried out. Some authors divide the aforementioned ten points of restructuring into basic three with the others as the instruments of the three main ways of the CSR. For instance (Liendert & Modi, 1998) explain that generally there were those strategies focussing on reducing employment and real wages which can be grouped into three main groups: employment-reducing measures; restraining wages and rationalizing the pay structure; and finally, improving Civil Service Management. Each one of the three therefore had several steps or actions that were taken in order to accomplish the set goal. The measures for reducing employment included the following: censuses and removal of "ghost" workers; restraint or freeze regarding recruitment; enforcing retirement or lowering the retirement age; voluntary early retirement; retrenchment on existing civil service employees; assistance to departing workers; redeployment within the civil service, decentralization, contracting out and military demobilisation. The second measures that aimed at restraining wages and rationalizing the pay structure include: wage freezes or partial indexation; limit automatic increments; consolidating non-wage benefits into salaries; wage decompression to keep highly skilled staff; performance-related promotions and pay. Most of the civil servants benefited a lot from non-wage benefits like government housing schemes and others which were not really commensurate with either their positions or salaries. This created a lot of problems as such non-wage benefits and to be monetized. The final step of improving Civil Service Management took its own measures which in most of the cases have not really been realized due to financial problems. However there has been relatively limited progress in the following few measures: the establishment of computerized links between the payroll and establishment registers, and the completion of the first rounds of functional reviews. In some countries it also involved setting up good measures on 15.

(25) auditing and procurement procedures which in other countries was referred to as Public Finance Management Reforms (Durevall & Erlandsson, 2005). The results of civil service reforms in SSA are somewhat mixed. Different authors suggest that it is not plausible to conclude that the results were either promising or not but rather it is better to look broadly at different issues that surround the whole process of reforms. For instance, Lienert explains: Although reforms aimed at improving both the level of real wages and the salary structure, very few countries achieved these objectives. On the contrary, real wages have continued to decline, by 2 percent a year on average during 1990–96. (...) In the countries experiencing strong declines in real wages, the evidence suggests that there was a further compression of upper-grade salaries. In contrast, some countries—Uganda being the most prominent example—made a conscious effort to increase real wages from low levels and improve incentives for higherpaid staff (Lienert 1998, pp.7-8).. There were also other countries like Ghana, The Gambia and Guinea which managed to set decompression structures and managed to reach their targets. It is noted that these countries and other few ones made significant change in raising real wages for their employees. Despite all this success, their wage bills as a percentage of GDP either did not rise significantly or did not rise to the intended levels or were still under the SSA average. This was usually because salary increases were accompanied by significant declines in civil service employment. On the other hand, in some countries, especially in southern Africa (for example, Lesotho, Malawi, and Zimbabwe), governments were unable to resist large real wage increases and made little headway in restructuring salaries and employment, this is according to (Lienert, 1998). It is important therefore not to conclusively say that the reforms were a success or a failure.. 16.

(26) Civil Service Reforms in Malawi While the rest of the SSA was having all the reforms, Malawi was no exception at all. There were reforms of a similar kind, aimed at reducing the civil service employment in a bid to cut down government wage bills and improve the civil service incentives. It is important however at this point to give a brief definition of what a civil service in Malawi. Definition of the Civil Service and the Civil Servant It is difficult to give one clear definition of the civil service in Malawi because of several reasons. In the first reason is historical problem of defining the civil service. In the first, place soon after the country’s independence the police and the teachers were not considered to be in the civil service but for all legal and practical reasons today they are considered as civil servants. And then although the law provides for judiciary offices to be outside the administrative mandate of the Public Service Commission, which is vested with the specific responsibility for the recruitment, promotion and discipline of civil servants (as stipulated in the Constitution of the Republic of Malawi, chapter 20), in virtually all other administrative aspects, the judiciary officers are treated as civil servants. Finally, the Government underwrites the payroll of employees in Treasury Funds and non-commercial parastatals. Therefore, a budget or payroll-based definition of central Government employees would normally include employees in these categories. The second problem rises from the definition of civil service given by the Malawi Public Service Regulations (MPSR). By definition, the MPSR says civil servants are those Government employees on permanent and pensionable posts yet there is a disparity between the definition and what happens in practice. In practice, there have been large numbers of industrial class employees who would ordinarily be on temporary and wage-based employment contracts, have been admitted into permanent and pensionable status without any upgrading into established posts. Not only that most of the industrial class employees who were retrenched at the onset of the second phase of the reforms as noted by (Lienert, 1997). The second problem on this is that the regulations approve the appointment of temporary employees against vacancies in the established permanent and pensionable posts, and many such temporary employees have remained in employment for periods as long as 17.

(27) 10 years thereby making them qualify practically as civil servants. The other problem is that in the case of military personnel, employment is not guided or constrained by establishment positions as established in the (Civil Service Pay and Employment Study, 1994). The third problem has more to do with the control mechanism that deals with the issues of the civil service than anything else. The Civil Service Pay and Employment Study reports that: ...the absence of an effective system for control and monitoring of recruitment in all cadres of the civil service results in a situation whereby at any point in time, it is impossible to reliably establish the actual numbers of all central government employees. In particular, since there are no central records of non-established employees, their total number cannot be correctly determined. Available evidence suggests that the number is a significant proportion of the total number of those in the central government payroll. As further elaborated below, these "nonestablished" employees in the main comprise “industrial class” workers, but also include personnel employed in development projects who have not yet been transferred to the payroll under the recurrent budget, and other temporary and seasonal employees. In all, these employees constitute about a third of the total number of government employees. The exact status of these categories of government employees has to be clarified before the size of the civil service could be determined (The Civil Service Pay and Employment Study, 1994, p.8). There are other researchers too who have expressed concern over the unreliability of the data concerning the total number of civil servants Malawi. This is however a simplified problem with the current report that Malawi now has a confirmed number of 151,000 civil servants. This figure does not however explain whether it includes the employees on nonestablished positions as well as industrial class positions. Due to the above discussed issues in defining the civil service and also accurate figures of the total number of civil servants, this paper uses the term civil service to broadly describe employees on the government pay roll whether or not they occupy established, non-established and industrial class positions. However, this definition excludes employees in parastatals and local government whose salaries may be funded by the central government through subsidies and grants. This definition has also been used in the (Civil Service Pay and Employment Study of the World Bank, 1994). Malawi like the rest of the SSA countries carried out similar strategies in her civil service reforms. For instance, the elimination of the ghost workers from the pay roll, 18.

(28) retrenchment of temporary or seasonal workers who constituted the larger part of the civil service, enforcement of retirement age as well as freezing of recruitment. In addition to this there was the elimination of guaranteed entry to the civil service from the educational or training system, suspension of automatic advancement. The other mechanisms that were used in almost every ministry was the ‘voluntary’ incentive-induced retirement of surplus workers, containment of wages (restraints or freezes) and finally retrenchment of redundant civil servants which was not done at a larger scale like in other countries due political reasons. Although the strategies were meant for good reasons, they met a lot of opposition from the Trade Unions as well as the other serving civil servants who thought that they are at risk of losing their jobs. There were main issues that were tackled seriously during the implementation period due mainly to the commitment of the then government. For instance (Kiragu, 1998) reports that the first initiative in civil service reform was a census of civil servants in 1995. Through the census, “ghost, employees” were removed from the payroll, and payroll and personnel management information systems were linked. There followed plans to link the personnel management information system and the payroll with the pensions system in order to cut out ‘ghost’ pensioners. This was a success in that the wage bill managed to go down as it was one of the objectives for downsizing. Not only that, it became very easy to come up with the civil service data base that was useful in various ways. The disappointing part of the personnel management information system was that there was no proper handover between the consultant and the government that made the whole project a flop according to (Therkildsen, 2001). The linking of the personnel management system and the payroll with the pensions system enabled the removal of ghost pensioners very possible. The success of the programme has however has been met with different criticisms from different analysts. Some analysts have described it a failure, for instance (Therkildsen, 2001) while others think it has mixed results considering the environment in which the programme was implemented, (Lienert, 1998) and (Durevall, 2000).The next initiative or phase was a functional review of ministries. These reviews resulted in a reduction in the number of ministries from 26 to 23, following the abolition of Ministries of Relief and Rehabilitation; Physical Planning and Housing; and Youth, Sports and Culture. This however is no longer the case now since some ministries have either resurfaced or new ones have been initiated. According to the official 19.

(29) government website, there are now 25 ministries. This is quite different from the period when the reform structures were being seriously implemented at the onset of the programmes. The reduction of ministries was supposed to be long term and an outstanding initiative but now it seems it has now taken a totally different shape altogether. In addition to the abolition of the ministries that took place earlier, several functions were identified as appropriate for contraction out. This reduced government’s unnecessary load. These include catering, laundry, security, construction and ground maintenance. This however resulted in substantial reduction in the number of civil service employees, especially those without skills.. Turnover Intentions A lot of research has been carried out on this topic. Researchers have tried to predict and test relationships that exist between turnover and other factors such as job satisfaction, availability of alternative jobs and organizational commitment. Job turnover can simply be defined as the voluntary decision to quit the job by the employee according to (Mitchell, Holtom, Lee, Sablynski & Erez, 2005). There is however another perception of what constitutes turnover. According to Chattered Management Institute (2006), turnover can be viewed as a whole, as the number of employees who leave within a given period. Alternatively, it can be classified in three ways: employer controlled (dismissals, redundancies and early retirements); employee led (due to dissatisfaction of varying kinds); and employer and employee uncontrolled (maternity leave, retirement and others). There are many reasons why people would want to leave the organisation at different stages of their tenure. Traditional theories on turnover suggest that there is usually a process that is followed before people finally quit their jobs. Thus, people become dissatisfied with their job, search for alternatives, and compare those options with their current job using an expected-value-like decision process and leave if any of these alternatives are judged better than their current situation (Mitchell, Holtom, Lee, Sablynski & Erez, 2005). Job attitudes combined with job alternatives predict the intent to leave. The intent to leave is the direct antecedent to turnover. If the person perceives their job in a negative way they become dissatisfied and lose motivation. Later they will try to look for “better” jobs as compared with the current one. If it is found, they are more likely to leave the current job and take on 20.

(30) the new job. If the “better” job or alternative is not found, then they are more likely to stay on the same job, of course their dissatisfaction continues. Attitudes in turnover intentions therefore play a very important part. According to other authors (Loquercio, 2006; Werner & DeSimone, 2006) however, there are a number of trigger factors that lead job turnover. These can be described in terms of pull and push factors. Pull factors concern the attraction of new jobs or the prospect of the period outside the workforce. That is the availability or offers of attractive jobs and the consideration of the length of time when one maybe jobless if they decided to leave the current job. These factors pull the individual away from the organisation. Push factors on the other hand are those that chase people away from the organisation. The employees get so much dissatisfied such that they can no longer stay in the organisation (Loquercio, 2006). Thus they feel like organisational climate is pushing them away. Push factors include among others, job dissatisfaction, unattractive salaries, a feeling of lack of job autonomy and/or job enrichment strategies. The other factors can be said to stem from the external environment such as the perceptions of outcomes of job performance either to be fair or unfair; supervision; organisation and co-workers (Werner & DeSimone, 2006). When employees perceive that they are not being treated fairly in comparison with their colleagues either by the company or by the supervisor, they tend to be discontented and start looking for other alternatives which include opportunities for other jobs. Of all these trigger factors, empirical results suggest that in general “satisfaction and commitment have consistent, statistically significant and negative relationships with turnover” (Mitchell, Holtom, Lee, Sablynski & Erez, 2005, p.7). In general, it can be said that there are four broad categories of reasons for leaving the job namely: structural, organisational, personal and contextual factors. Structural issues mainly concern training in preparation for the job and job insecurity. The feelings that one is failing to perform because they were not given adequate training or that their job can be terminated are good reasons for leaving the organisation. Most employees do not like to fail because they have not been given the right or enough training. Failure in itself brings a sense of low self-esteem and loss of confidence. Alternatively employees think that the organisation does not provide adequate training because it has little or no concern for its employees’ growth in terms of career. If the employees feel that their job is not safe and may be fired or have their contract terminated 21.

(31) anyhow, they tend to seek smart exists in search for safe havens. The other thing is the fear for a dismissal record in their career profile. Some employees think that having a record of dismissal is not a pleasant thing because such records tend to reduce their marketability (Pedraza, De Bustillo, & Tijdens, 2005). Thus lack of proper training or training stagnate the employees’ career growth and lead to loss of marketability since they have outdated knowledge and skills. Personal factors on the other hand include family related issues, career concerns and health in some instances. Family issues may include the relocation of a spouse or taking full family responsibility which collides with job demands. Sometimes it is the desire to change career or develop it further. Health issues include the employee’s inability to resume work due to some ailments as certified by the medical personnel or a feeling that the job is not health-friendly. There are other factors like personal agency which refers to concepts such as a sense of powerlessness, locus of control and personal control that affect turnover decision (Ongori, 2007). Locus of control refers to the extent to which people believe that the external factors such as chance and powerful others are in control of the events which influence their lives (Firth, Mellor, Moore & Loquet, 2004). People with high internal locus of control believe that they control themselves and their life whereas people with high external locus of control believe that their environment, some higher power, or other people control their decisions and their lives. This difference is very important in considering how people respond to situations that in their lives. People with high internal locus of control believe that since they are in control of their own actions, they should also bear responsibility for any outcomes of their decisions. Further, they believe that they can change their own course of life. Hence, when things come at the work places that are not pleasant to them, they would try everything possible to get out of the situation. Such people often quit jobs if they get dissatisfied in a bid to take full control of their lives. Alternatively they make not quit with the belief that they are the ones to blame for the dissatisfaction happening in their lives as such they are to blame. Hence they are more likely to stay on the job with the belief that they are going to change the situation for the better. People with high external locus of control always place the blame on either other people or circumstances and never think they can contribute to the bad situation in their lives. This being the case, they easily become discontented and also dissatisfied. Since they cannot control anything, they think the 22.

(32) only solution is to quit the job and find another job which is in tandem with their values and will make their lives more comfortable. There are other factors too which may not really be known or expressed in the exit interviews which simply be classified as personal since the reasons are known the employee only. Organisational factors concern organisational policies, values and management, management support, training and development terms and conditions of service. When employees perceive that the organisational policies are not friendly enough for them to progress in life, they tend to seek other alternatives to make their lives better. This also relates to the amount of pay they get in relation to the amount of work they do. Other issues include the support they get from supervisors and other top management teams, either they are supportive or not. Support may be understood from different angles such as encouraging the subordinates in the contributively ideas to the organisation; giving enough or the required resources to make work easy and better; giving constructive criticism and many more. Sometimes the employees may feel that the organisation’s values are no longer in line with their own. These may include religious issues, political or other moral issues. Employees who feel like most part f the job makes them behave in a way that is not in line with their religious beliefs or any other, begin to have a sense of resentment as such they start developing the intent to quit the job. When conditions of service are perceived to be oppressive in one way or the other by the employees, the tendency to be resentful to the organisation grows. This in the long run leads to the intent to quit the job. Such conditions of service may include loans schemes, retirement and pension packages as well as health schemes, just to mention a few. Sometimes high labour turnover may be due to poor recruitment policies, poor supervisory practices, poor grievance procedures or lack of motivation. These contribute to high turnover rate in that there are no proper management practices and policies on personnel matters as such employees are recruited anyhow. Promotions are not based on clearly articulated policies and there are no grievance procedures and so employees decide to quit. One other thing related to organisational factors is the stability of the organisation. Employees want to feel that they are working for a stable organisation that will enable their growth and also that they will be able to stay at the job for quite some time before the organisation is closed due to different reasons.. 23.

(33) Finally, contextual factors concern context of assignments, social life, security, climate and other local stress factors. Viewed in that order of occurrence, the factors determine the level of influence to leave the organisation and also the level of commitment if the person decides to stay with the organisation. That is moving from contextual factors to structural factors, the level of influence is stronger but as you move to structural, it becomes weaker as so the individual is more likely to quit the job (turnover). Contextual factors are mostly applicable to specific individuals and not to the whole group as a whole. Thus only particular conditions may be applicable to an individual. Such conditions may include the level of stressor factors perceived by the individual in relation to his job. These may include life outside the work environment, security within the location in which he lives and how safe he is, with regard to where he goes to work. It may also be social life at the workplace which may force the individual to feel like he is not part of the social group (interpersonal relations). Once individuals lack the sense of belonging, the whole idea of staying at the work place becomes a faded dream and looks for a place where he can feel that he indeed belongs. Since most of the causes of job turnover are job dissatisfaction and loss of commitment, it is imperative to look at the theories and researches that have been conducted on the same. Frederick Hertzberg proposed in 1950s two-factor theory on motivation. This theory holds that employee satisfaction is related to factors which satisfy (motivator factors), and factors which cause dissatisfaction (hygiene factors). This is to explain that job satisfaction and dissatisfaction are caused by two different factors-motivator and hygiene factors. The presence of Motivator factors in the workplace cause enduring states in employees but their absence does not lead to dissatisfaction. Hygiene factors on the other hand produce an acceptable working environment but do not increase satisfaction yet their absence does cause job dissatisfaction- they simply prevent dissatisfaction.. They are. primarily extrinsic factors. In essence this means that when workers are satisfied they attribute their satisfaction to the work itself. When they are dissatisfied, they are concerned about their work environment. Motivator factors include: responsibility, recognition, promotion/advancement, achievement and intrinsic aspects of the job (the job itself). Hygiene factors on the other hand comprise: quality of supervision, salary, status, job. 24.

(34) security, working environment/conditions, company’s policies and administration, and interpersonal relations (Wong, Wong, Ngo, & Lui, 2003). Hertzberg et al (1954) proposed that the two approaches-motivation and hygiene should be carried out simultaneously. The governing principle is to: treat people so that they obtain a minimum of dissatisfaction. Use people so they achieve, get recognition, grow and advance in their careers. Based on Maslow' s Hierarchy, Herzberg et al. theorised that the factors that motivate the worker or that are likely to satisfy their needs, lead to positive job attitudes. To this end, suggestions to employers on how to promote employee satisfaction were made. With this approach, management ought to focus on a number of things in order to boost the motivator factors. These include the following possibilities: job extension that combines the work of several jobs; job rotation that alternates workers between a limited numbers of jobs over time; enrichment that diversifies work and provides greater but more responsibility. Following this, other scholars have attempted to give definitions of the motivator and hygiene factors. These include Recognition - Acts of notice, praise, or blame supplied by one or more superior, peer, colleague, management person, client, and/or the general public. The terms are explained as follows: Achievement - Accomplishment of endeavours including instances wherein failures were incurred. Similarly, instances were included wherein neither success nor failures were incurred. Possibility of Growth - Whether a change in status was possible, irrespective of the fact that the change could be upward or downward in status. Advancement - Designated an actual change in job status. Salary - All sequences of events in which compensation plays a major role. Interpersonal Relations -Relationships involving superiors, subordinates, and peers. Supervision - The supervisor’s willingness or unwillingness to delegate responsibility and/or willingness to teach subordinates. Responsibility - Satisfaction derived from being given control of personal work or the work of others and/or new job responsibilities. Policy and Administration – Events in which some or all aspects of the organization were related to job satisfaction. Working Condition – Physical working conditions, facilities, and quality of work as related to job satisfaction. Work itself -The actual job performance related to job satisfaction (Padilla-Velez, 1993, pp.2021; Bowen, 1980, pp.13-14).. 25.

(35) This paper also adopts the above definitions and explanations for its purposes. This paper will therefore use these definitions in its questionnaire and the interpretation of the results. There have been criticisms on the use of this theory in testing job satisfaction as well as in doing other kinds of research. For instance (Castillo & Cano, 2004) report that Hertzberg’s Motivator-Hygiene factor theory is not applicable to teacher educators in agriculture. They further report that there is a positive relationship between the hygiene factors which were purported by Hertzberg to have little effect upon positive job attitudes. The extent to which the motivator-hygiene theory and other job satisfaction theories contribute to the understanding of job satisfaction is one of several issues in the abundance of research pertaining to job satisfaction. (Werner & DeSimone, 2006) report that other researchers could not replicate the results on the theory using other methods. It is further reported by other scholars that later studies on this theory suggested that the independent effect of motivators and hygiene factors is flawed. One study demonstrated that both can be related to job satisfaction and job dissatisfaction. In addition, job satisfaction does not necessarily imply a high level of motivation or productivity. The other criticism is that the theory is biased to professionals and, finally that the study did not include blue collar jobs. Although the theory has received such kind of criticism, many researches still use it in the field on job satisfaction, employee commitment and others in relation to employee job turnover. For instance (Luna-Arocas & Camps, 2008) from the University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain conducted a survey on what they called High Performance Work Practices in both public and private sectors. The purpose of the study was to clarify the relationship between human resource practices and staff retention. This was done by selecting three high performance work practices (precursors) and one outcome variable (turnover intentions), and trying to demonstrate the mediator role of employee commitment and job satisfaction in the relationship. In the Valencia study mentioned above, it is argued that human resources are the rarest resource for organisations’ success. The paper further argues that HR practices affect organisational outcomes by shaping employee behaviours and attitudes. More specifically, high performance work practices (HPWP) increase organizational effectiveness by creating 26.

(36) conditions where employees become highly involved in the organization and work hard to accomplish its goals, in other words, by increasing their employees’ commitment to the organization and job satisfaction (Luna-Arocas & Camps, 2008). This argument stems from the Ability-Motivation-Opportunity (AMO) Model which has its roots in the hygienemotivator theory. Thus the model suggests that the organisation’s performance can be enhanced through the workforces’ ability, motivation and the opportunity to contribute to the growth of the organisation. This Valencia study revealed that salary strategies and job enrichment strategies were positively related to job satisfaction; job enrichment strategies and job stability strategies were positively related to employee commitment; employee commitment was negatively related to turnover intentions. The relationship between job satisfaction and turnover intentions was mediated by employee commitment (Luna-Arocas & Camps 2008). These results were true for both public and private sectors for both men and women. It is important therefore to take into consideration the above findings since several other researchers have also found similar results.. Job Enrichment Job Enrichment is one of the many factors that have also been studied as contributing to job turnover. Job Enrichment can be defined as giving workers more tasks to perform and more control over how to perform the tasks (Moorhead & Griffin, 2004). This theory is based on the hygiene-motivator theory otherwise known as the dual-structure theory of Herzberg. This theory proposes that employees can be motivated by positive job-related experiences such as feelings of achievement, responsibility, and recognition. To achieve these, job enrichment relies on vertical job loading-not only adding more tasks to a job, as in horizontal loading, but also giving the employee more control over those tasks (Moorhead & Griffin, 2004). This is to explain that the way jobs are designed has an impact on the employees’ performance. When employees are given more responsibilities on the job; more authority on how to do the job and; recognition (feedback) on how they perform on the job, they tend to feel satisfied and hence retain the job. Enriched jobs tend to have more tasks to be done and not in a routine manner. 27.